Some of these regions are more important for their significance to particular segments of the NS Community, rather than just being old or big. For example, Atlantian Oceania has been a pillar of the NS Sports community for some time now. Greater Dienstad hosted an NS World Fair, on top of being one of the pillars of the II community.

It goes without saying: go ahead and steal any ideas from this you like. Go forth and draft.

Valanora would be a good NS Sports pick. Won five World Cups (T-1st), hosted six WCs (1st), is a powerhouse in WCoH (played in three straight finals currently, all against the same team), and probably some stuff I'm forgetting or haven't looked up yet.

In=character, Kaboomlandia is a World Assembly member and abides by its resolutions. If this nation isn't in the WA, it's for practical reasons.Author of GA #371, SC #208 and SC #214Co-Author of SC #204"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Kaboomlandia wrote:Valanora would be a good NS Sports pick. Won five World Cups (T-1st), hosted six WCs (1st), is a powerhouse in WCoH (played in three straight finals currently, all against the same team), and probably some stuff I'm forgetting or haven't looked up yet.

Sounds like a young Starblaydia!

[violet] wrote:I mean this in the best possible way, but Unibot is not a typical NS player.

Milograd wrote:You're a caring, resolute lunatic with the best of intentions.

What am I doing on this list? I never even aggressively refounded a region, and while Kantrias was impressive on its run, it certainly didn't have a footprint large enough to make me worthy of commend or condemn. Yet. Nothing I've done is *that* stand out, apart from being very chatty on the Gameplay forums.

But as someone who used to hang in Philosophy 115 on and off before I joined Gameplay, I would be 100% onboard with someone commending them.

Never underestimate the power of cynicism, pessimism and negativity to prevent terrible things from happening. Only idealists try to build the future on a mountain of bodies.The Thing to Remember About NationStates is that it is an almost entirely social game - fundamentally, you have no power beyond your own ability to convince people to go along with your ideas. In that sense, even the most dictatorial region is fundamentally democratic.

Vancouvia? Never! A nation that repeatedly submitted the same proposal, even though it never got anywhere near quorum. About a dozen failed attempts. Vancouvia is also one of those Delegates that will approve any proposal however illegal.

Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you…

Bhang Bhang Duc wrote:Vancouvia? Never! A nation that repeatedly submitted the same proposal, even though it never got anywhere near quorum. About a dozen failed attempts. Vancouvia is also one of those Delegates that will approve any proposal however illegal.

He's shown nothing but contempt for the WA, let's not reward that.

But the focus is on Vancovia's interaction with the WA, let's look at how quickly Vancovia turned the The Western Isles into one of the biggest and most active UCRs in the game.

Bhang Bhang Duc wrote:Vancouvia? Never! A nation that repeatedly submitted the same proposal, even though it never got anywhere near quorum. About a dozen failed attempts. Vancouvia is also one of those Delegates that will approve any proposal however illegal.

He's shown nothing but contempt for the WA, let's not reward that.

And also, when Commend Vancouvia came up to vote a while back, he actually encouraged a vote against it (and a vote for the excessively-submitted proposal).

Bhang Bhang Duc wrote:Vancouvia? Never! A nation that repeatedly submitted the same proposal, even though it never got anywhere near quorum. About a dozen failed attempts. Vancouvia is also one of those Delegates that will approve any proposal however illegal.

He's shown nothing but contempt for the WA, let's not reward that.

But the focus is on Vancovia's interaction with the WA, let's look at how quickly Vancovia turned the The Western Isles into one of the biggest and most active UCRs in the game.

Not to mention completely onsite rather than relying on an offsite forum etc.

As always, I'm representing myself as a citizen, rather than as part of the Government, if I am at the time.

Canton Empire wrote:But the focus is on Vancovia's interaction with the WA, let's look at how quickly Vancovia turned the The Western Isles into one of the biggest and most active UCRs in the game.

Not to mention completely onsite rather than relying on an offsite forum etc.

Lots of pure roleplay regions don't use offsite forums, because they actually can do things onsite in places like II. Gameplay regions are legally not allowed. Doing it all onsite is not some magically praiseworthy thing.

Never underestimate the power of cynicism, pessimism and negativity to prevent terrible things from happening. Only idealists try to build the future on a mountain of bodies.The Thing to Remember About NationStates is that it is an almost entirely social game - fundamentally, you have no power beyond your own ability to convince people to go along with your ideas. In that sense, even the most dictatorial region is fundamentally democratic.

That's a bizarre ruling, Sedge. To be blunt: you're making a distinction that isn't there. Rule 4 should be the only barrier to commending Northrop for the dark theme (and it's a tough enough challenge as it is.) Conflating any "submitted changes of appearance to the site" to Rule 1 (which bares commending/condemning "members of the site staff" for the roles they play in those capacity) is an overreach of Rule 1.

If someone can come up with a way to refer to a theme without unreasonably violating Rule 4, I think it should be allowed.

That's not very good, but it should pass the Rule 4 smell-test. It's a matter of being vague (and punny!) enough. Any resolution with a "keeping others in the dark" pun is the gold standard. Applying Rule 1 on this suggests Grumman's actions were analogous to an act as a staff role - when it obviously wasn't since he clearly was not servicing a staff role. I think your interpretation of Rule 1 fails precedent in a number of regards: first and foremost, applied coherently, we would be banned from commending NS Issue authors for writing NS Issues. Our ability to commend NS Issue Authors has always been terribly sketchy under Rule 4 - the phrase "issues" doesn't give any more latitude than "themes" does. NS Issues again do not affect the appearance of the site and are contributed voluntarily to the game code. A ban of this nature would also block commendations for adaptive technology like Eluvatar's Telescope and Afforess' NS++.

It should be said that the dark skin is only one part of Northrop Grumman's contributions to NS - he's a leading member of the Factbook/Roleplay community. But banning mentioning the major theme contribution seems very silly to me - it's taking Rule 1 without a reasonable purposive interpretation.

Maljaratas wrote:I know for a fact that you have 2+ issue authors on there, as you actually have 2 issue editors on there. (Candle, who is now a senior, and Zwangzug, who is new from the recent contest.

I might look at doing commendations for issue authors, since that happens to be the one part of NS that I know the best.

Candle is also a generalite and a commendation for Zwangy cannot go without mentioning her substantial work in NS Sports, her contributions to the NS World Fair (she ran the NS Sports tournaments for the first and second fair entirely) and her defending work (she was a prolific spotter/liberator in the UDL.)

Maljaratas wrote:I know for a fact that you have 2+ issue authors on there, as you actually have 2 issue editors on there. (Candle, who is now a senior, and Zwangzug, who is new from the recent contest.

I might look at doing commendations for issue authors, since that happens to be the one part of NS that I know the best.

Candle is also a generalite and a commendation for Zwangy cannot go without mentioning her substantial work in NS Sports, her contributions to the NS World Fair (she ran the NS Sports tournaments for the first and second fair entirely) and her defending work (she was a prolific spotter/liberator in the UDL.)

That's good to know for Zwangzug, though I was thinking in general terms of commending issue authors.Thanks for for the info, should I actually get around to writing anything

"There are decades when nothing happens. There are weeks where decades happen" -Vladimir Lenin